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Sunday, May 18, 2014

I'm not sure how I balanced teaching, blogging, and label/bucket making before I moved...but now it seems to be impossible to find that extra minute to write a simple post! (so frustrating)

I know that school is nearing an end for many of you, I still have about three weeks! But I am happy to report that state testing is over for me, whew! Now to keep the kiddos focused and engaged.

I wanted to share two different things with you all.

The first being an AWESOME book for a read aloud. I must preface this with it is an upper grades book!

Joe O'Neill is an author out of Oregon. This is the first book in his series Red Hand Adventures. The students LOVED this book. I came up with some "thinking" questions for each chapter and the students had to take notes as I read each chapter. The discussions that came from this book were amazing. There is a second book in the series, as well as a third on the way. The book has action and adventure, keeping the kiddos on the edge of their seats. They would beg me to read more than one chapter a day (the chapters are pretty long, each chapter averaged 45 min reading aloud).

My plan is to have some novel study packets for this book, Counting on Grace, as well as Because of Mr. Terupt done over the summer, now that's my plan!

Next, my students had their turn to put on an assembly for our entire school (each class gets a turn throughout the school year). After a quick discussion my students wanted to do something about anti-bullying. This is something they have been very passionate about all year long. It also came about thanks to one of Kid President's videoes: Letter to a Person on Their First Day (click to watch).

My students came up with their own response to his video, we first shared our own video at our assembly:

After showing this video we then performed a piece to the song: Don't Laugh at Me, enjoy!